Photo of the day (5.5.09)

What the heck is going on in this picture? Actually, I can tell you. That’s our very own Kent Wien from Cockpit Chronicles and Plane Answers shooting a photo of himself in the airplane lav. Why, you might ask? He’s actually taking part in a social experiment hosted by our resident flight attendant, Heather Poole. In one of her recent posts, Ms. Poole called on the loyal Gadling readers to take (appropriate!) shots of themselves at 30,000 feet.

The resulting gallery, which you can see on Heather’s recent post is a funny/creepy/interesting look into the lives of a small faction of Gadling readers. We love you guys!

Got any cool photos that you’d like to share with the world? Add them to the Gadling Pool on Flickr and it might be chosen as our Photo of the Day. Make sure you save them under Creative Commons though, otherwise we can’t use them!

Galley Gossip: Laviators unite! (mile high headshots)

Recently I wrote a post, the hottest trend on the airplane since the mile high club, about something disturbing, yet quite intriguing, that was taking place not just on the airplane, but behind the locked lavatory door at 35,000 feet. Passengers, and I’m talking all kinds of passengers, have been photographing themselves in the bathroom. Alone. Doing what, I don’t know. But they look like they’re just standing there. And I wanted to do it, too.

I had written, “Oh you better believe I’ll be taking my own self portrait in the lav on my next flight to New York on Wednesday. Until then, check out these interesting shots.” And then I added a photo gallery I’d put together of passengers I’d found on Flickr.com standing in the lav, camera in hand.

One Gadling reader responded, “Heather, if you do photograph yourself in the lav, please spare us the picture! I think people will lose any respect they have for you.”

Sounds to me like someone needs to lighten up, and they can start by grabbing their camera and joining the club – the laviators club. I did! Yep, that’s me up there in the photo looking not so hot on a flight from Los Angeles to New York. Hey, it was late and I was tired. But I just had to do it. Even though my seat mate did look at me a little funny after he caught me trying to sneak my camera into the front pocket of my pants.

The first thing I did when I got home was download the photo, that photo right up there, onto my personal blog. I had a good laugh and I honestly thought that would be that, end of story. But a few days later I got an email with a photo attached from a Gadling reader. “This one’s for you,” Nate wrote, and that’s all he wrote, and it cracked me up!

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The very next day I got another one! Jeff wrote, “I made you a picture.” I clicked the link and thought to myself, Oh. My. God. What have I started?

Next to join the club was one of my favorite flight attendants, Sodwee, also known as Airboy. He works for Emirates. He wrote, “Heather, I was thinking of you from CDG to DBX.”

Airboy wasn’t the only one thinking about me in the lav. Leesa wrote, “My daughter and I flew to LA last week and thought you might want some lav pictures for your collection.”

Well Leesa and her daughter were right! Not only do I have an interesting collection of mile high headshots from readers like you, I want more, more, MORE! So next time you’re on a flight don’t forget to take your camera and make sure to think of me – in the lav. Please, I beg you, join the club – the laviators club. And I’ll add your photo to the gallery above. Hmm…I wonder if Karen Walrond, our own resident photogapher, can give us a few tips?

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Galley Gossip: Passenger gets caught with pants down

Dear Heather,

Is it standard procedure for a flight attendant to force open a toilet occupied by a passenger if the plane is about to land? Under what circumstances has the flight attendant a right to do this?

Thanks,

Caught with My Pants Down

Dear Caught with My Pants Down,

I’m so sorry to hear you were caught with your pants down. I’m also sorry that a flight attendant had to see you that way. I’m sure it was embarrassing for both of you. On my flight from New York to Dallas last week I caught two passengers in the same position, but that’s just because they forgot to lock the door, not because I forced the thing open. So please, people, I beg you, do not forget to switch that little sign from vacant to occupied. That way we won’t have to avoid eye contact for the rest of the flight.

As for forcing a locked door open, it does not happen often. In fact I’ve only had to do it twice in my career and I’ve been flying for fourteen years. Once, not too long ago, I did it when I heard a young child yelling, “help, help, help!” because she couldn’t figure out how to unlock the lavatory door and another time when, seconds before departure, the passenger who had locked himself inside ignored our pleas to return to his seat.

“Sir, you need to come out! We can not depart until you take your seat!” my coworker cried, banging her fists on the accordion door. No answer. Just silence. Complete silence.

I gave it a try – knock, knock, knock! “Sir, are you okay in there?” Still no response.

“We’re coming in,” my coworker yelled, and two seconds later the door was pushed open. Startled, the man with the needle stuck in his arm jumped, causing it to pop out and blood to spurt all over the floor. The airplane was immediately taken out of service.

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Because your question is lacking in details, I can not answer as thoroughly as I’d like to. What I want to know is just how close to landing were you? Was it an International flight? Which airport were you flying into? Just how long did you stay in the bathroom? Were you unable to use it prior to landing? Or had you used it so often throughout the flight you may have raised a few eyebrows? Did you take anything into the bathroom with you, say a paper bag or something that might look suspicious? Were you sick? Did you answer the flight attendant when he or she knocked on the door and asked you to return to your seat? During the flight had you been rude or caused a problem in flight? Had the flight attendants already done their final compliance check and were ready to strap themselves into their jump seats while you were in the toilet? Your answers do make a difference.

While yes, you should have been in your seat, as per FAA regulations, regardless of what was going on during your flight, the flight attendants may not have pried the door open so quickly. They may have given you a few more seconds to pull your pants back up.

You did mention that the airplane was about to land, which leads me to believe the seat belt sign was on. Flight attendants are required to advise passengers to keep their seat belts fastened at all times, even when the seat belt sign is not on, and customers must comply with seat belt regulations at all times. Recently Scott Carmichael wrote about a passenger who was paralyzed from the neck down when she used the toilet on a Continental flight and the airplane hit turbulence. It happens. And it can happen even when the seat belt sign is not on. On the Continental flight the sudden drop threw the woman against the ceiling, fracturing her neck. For the record, the seat belt sign had been illuminated.

On descent flight attendants must be strapped into their jumpseats. With you locked in the bathroom you are not only a danger to them (if you were to fall on top of them), but to the passengers you must pass in order to get back to your seat, and the passenger who now must unbuckle their seat belt and stand up to let you back into your row. If something were to happen to you, or anyone seated around you, the flight attendants would not be able to help. The flight attendants job, at this stage in flight, is to man the emergency doors. Not take care of you.

No one wants to be caught with their pants down, I know that, and I am sorry that it had to happen to you. But flight attendants have a job to do and when the seat belt sign is on you should be in your seat with your belt fastened about you. Not in the lav. Especially on descent or when there’s turbulence!

To read more about turbulence in flight and why it’s important to keep your seat belt fastened at all times, check out my Galley Gossip post A question about turbulence and being scared at work.

Hope your next flight is a better one.

Heather Poole

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If you have a question email me at Skydoll123@yahoo.com

Photo courtesy of (lavatory) Daquella Manera, (Continental Airlines) Phinalanji

Galley Gossip: Hottest trend on the airplane since the mile high club

Checking your watch for the umpteenth time, you sigh, because you’re on the airplane waiting in line to use the bathroom and you’ve been waiting in line for a very long time. What’s strange is you’re next to go and have been for some time now. What the heck is going on in there?

You probably don’t want to know. What you do know is the passenger who went in there ten minutes ago can’t be doing that, at least not with another person, because they went in there alone. Then again some people join the mile high club while others prefer the solo aviators division.

“Excuse me, Miss,” you say, and when you say this you’re looking at me, and because I see you standing in front of a lavatory door that is occupied, I already know what you’re going to say before you even say it and I’m really, really, wishing you didn’t have to involve me.

“Whoever’s in there has been in there a very long time,” you tell me.

I nod, trying my best to look concerned, and while I’m nodding I’m praying the person who has been in the lavatory for a very long time will finally walk out. Please walk out! When they don’t walk out, I say, “Sometimes it takes some people a little longer than others.” Because it does. I mean it took me two years to even use the thing. For real.

“Can you at least knock on the door to make sure they’re alright?”

I take a deep breath, wondering why you can’t knock on the door yourself, because we both know you don’t really care whether or not they’re alright in there and I’m not the one who needs to use the loo, but I go ahead and do it anyway – knock knock, knocking my knuckles against the hard, cold door, and that’s when I hear a powerful flush.

I smile and state the obvious, “They should be out in a second.”

Suddenly the door swings opens and the passenger walks out. As the passenger passes you by, you think to yourself, surely they weren’t doing that, because they just don’t look like the type to do that – at least not on an airplane. So you play it safe, holding your breath as you walk inside, locking the door behind you. Hoping for the best, you finally exhale, and strangely there is no odor. You can’t believe it. Grabbing a paper towel, you wonder just what that passenger was doing in the bathroom for all that time.

Well I think I know. I’ve even got the photos to prove it. While working on my last Galley Gossip post about trusting fear (on and off the airplane), I needed to find a photograph of the lavatory to go along with it, so I logged onto Flickr.com and typed the words LAVATORY AIRPLANE and BATHROOM AIRPLANE into the search bar. I could not believe what popped up. In fact, I’ve already told everyone I know all about what I found. I had to tell someone!

So let me be the first to tell you that something very strange and disturbing, yet quite intriguing, is going on behind that locked lavatory door. Passengers, and I’m talking all kinds of passengers, are photographing themselves in the bathroom. What I want to know is how long has this been going on? And why didn’t anyone ever tell me? You’d think I would have seen all those cameras going into the bathroom! Oh you better believe I’ll be taking my own self portrait in the lav on my next flight to New York on Wednesday. Until then, check out these interesting shots..

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Photo courtesy of Dpstyles

A bathroom problem of “Olympic” proportions

When I first saw the venue designs for this summer’s Olympic games in Beijing, I was quite impressed. The Chinese have pulled out all the stops to create several cutting-edge stadiums for the games, including the Beijing National Stadium designed by award-winning architects Herzog & de Meuron and the Beijing National Aquatics Center, which looks like a huge floating cube of water.

However, as the BBC reports, China may have spent a little too much money on those architecture fees. Prompted by frequent visitor complaints at test events, the Chinese are scrambling to replace traditional squat toilets at the venues with western-style “loos” for an expected 500,000 visitors. According to the BBC, who quotes Yao Hui, Deputy Head of Venue Management, “Most of the Chinese people are used to the squat toilet, but nowadays more and more people demand sit-down toilets.”

Gee, Yao, do you think? I have no problem adapting to a traditional squat toilet if I’m coming to visit China on my own, but perhaps when you have visitors coming from as many as 200 different nationalities you might want to standardize? I guess if you’re headed to this summer’s games in Beijing, make sure you bring your own toilet paper and maybe take a look at this for advice. Also take a look at this for more “traditional” background info on Beijing before your visit.

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